BIOGRAPHY (AS OF SEPTEMBER 2014): PLEASE FEEL FREE TO EDIT AS NEEDED
Dr. Brian P. Coppola is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan.
He currently serves as the department’s Associate Chair for Educational Development and
Practice, and also as the Associate Director for the University of Michigan-Peking University
Joint Institute, in Beijing, China.
Dr. Coppola received his B.S. degree in 1978 from the University of New Hampshire and his
Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. Moving to Ann
Arbor in 1986, he joined an active group of faculty in the design and implementation of a revised
undergraduate chemistry curriculum. His 1996-7 tenure review established a new policy within
the College of Literature, Science and Arts at the University of Michigan, recognizing disciplinecentered teaching and learning as an area that can be represented within the LSA departments.
He was promoted to Full Professor of Chemistry in 2001-2. His publications range from
mechanistic organic chemistry research in 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reactions to educational
philosophy, practice and assessment.
From 2002-12, Professor Coppola served as the department’s fifth Associate Chair for
Curriculum and Faculty Affairs, and in 2012 he was appointed as the first Associate Chair for
Educational Development and Practice. In this capacity, he is primarily responsible for directing
of the department’s future faculty program, in which undergraduate students, graduate students,
and post-doctoral associates work with faculty members on teaching and learning projects
within the department’s curriculum (see: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/csie-um/).
In 1994, Dr, Coppola received the 4th campus-wide "Golden Apple Award" for outstanding
teaching, a recognition organized and administered solely by undergraduate students. In 1996,
he was awarded a United States Department of Energy, Undergraduate Computational Science
Education Award. In 1998, Dr. Coppola was selected as part of the first group of Carnegie
Scholars affiliated with The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's CASTL
program (Carnegie Academy on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). In 1999, Dr.
Coppola received the Amoco Foundation Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching; and
in 2002 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science. In 2003, he received the Kendall-Hunt Outstanding Undergraduate Science Teacher
Award from the Society for College Science Teachers. In 2004 he was named the State of
Michigan Professor of the Year in the CASE/Carnegie US Professor of the Year program; in
2006, he received the American Chemical Society’s James Flack Norris Award for work that has
impacted the field of chemistry education. In 2009, he was selected as the CASE/Carnegie US
Professor of the Year (for doctoral institutions). In 2012, he received the 2012-14 Robert Foster
Cherry Award for Great Teaching.
He is a member of the editorial boards of The Chemical Educator, The International Journal of
Science Education, the Journal of Science Education and Technology, and the Journal of
Chemical Education. He is an Associate Editor for The Journal for Research in Science
Teaching, and he is the editor in chief of The Hexagon, the quarterly publication of Alpha Chi
Sigma, the professional chemistry fraternity.